I come from a culture in which being together revolves around food. When we get together as a family (usually weekly) we leave full to the brim. We entertain a lot and it involves a lot of eating. And do you know what the best part is? Despite so much of my social life revolving around food, we are all within a healthy weight range and are generally in very good health. There is no sorcery involved or 'good genetics'. We just have a healthy attitude to food.

I'm frustrated. As if healthy eating isn't hard enough to navigate between celebrity miracle diets and confusing food packaging. Now we are being told that some fruit and vegetables can make us fat? Give me a break!

As you may recall from last week, I started a 6 week mindfulness course with Monash University. I started it after a friend recommended the course because I wanted to find out more about what mindfulness actually is. More importantly, the thought that I could become more present in my every day life was very appealing.

I recently submitted a paper looking at iodine intakes in the Australian population, particularly in children and adolescents. Until 2009, iodine deficiency was relatively common however because of the detrimental effects of this, the government mandated its addition to the food supply. Iodine is now routinely added to bread and there are specific iodised salts available.

By now you have probably seen the Brazilian campaign featuring a baby nursing on a doughnut, soft drink or a burger. You may have seen the ad and thought "yeh, good point", or you may have seen it and rolled your eyes. I did the latter. In fact, I will go a step further and say I'm downright irritated by the ad. To me this looks like one of those ideas that sounded great to a marketing team sitting around a big table, and that's about where it stopped.

Life is busy. There's no question about that. Technology has added to the constant and sometimes overwhelming 'noise' that we need to filter through each and every day. Life can leave us burnt out, we multitask while really only paying attention to a fraction of what are doing. It can be hard to focus and be in the moment. Enter mindfulness.